Apple’s new sapphire crystal component producer GT-Advanced announced its Q4 2013 earnings results yesterday, and in addition to talking about the past quarter, the company shared some details about its future and its well-publicized partnership with Apple.

We previously indicated, based on research into publicly available shipping documents, that we expect Apple and GT-Advanced to be developing sapphire crystal displays for a future iPhone model. The companies are likely to be able to produce over 100 million displays this year…

Less clear, however, is when Apple will actually ship the next iPhone model to consumers. Ever since Apple switched from June/July iPhone launches to September/October debuts, there has been speculation that Apple could move back to early summer iPhone introductions.

Leaning toward Apple retaining its fall iPhone launch schedule is GT-Advanced indicating that it will “return to profitability” in the second half of 2014:

GT-Advanced also says that revenue and profitability will be back end loaded, which means that the company is expecting most of its positive financial performance to occur in the later part of the year.

With Apple being GT-Advanced’s most significant partner, it seems likely that GT-Advanced projections point to the sapphire-covered Apple product (which most indications point to being an iPhone) arriving in the later part of the year. The last couple of iPhone launches occurred in mid-September, so perhaps Apple is aiming for a similar timeline for 2014.

The company expects that revenue and profitability will be back end loaded, with its sapphire materials business ramping as the year progresses, and with improving financial performance during the second half of 2014.

As for the actual facility to Mesa, Arizona, we reported earlier this year that Apple has been “aggressively” pushing for an opening in February 2014. Based on comments from GT-Advanced yesterday, it seems like that plan is on target:

While Apple’s sapphire needs are obviously not GT-Advanced’s sole source of revenue, GT does indicate that it is only expecting “meaningful” revenue due to non-sapphire-crystal partnerships and products into 2015:

This serves as further evidence that the second half 2014 profits is related to the Apple sapphire crystal partnership.

Sapphire crystal would strengthen the iPhone’s display quality

The next version of the iPhone is expected to gain a larger display, a curved bezel, improved processor, and include a health/fitness-centric version of iOS.